Formation and dynamics of anti-ferromagnetic correlations in tunable optical lattices

TL;DR

This paper investigates the formation and evolution of anti-ferromagnetic correlations in ultracold fermions within various optical lattice geometries, revealing how geometry influences spin correlations and their dynamics.

Contribution

It provides experimental insights into how lattice geometry affects anti-ferromagnetic correlations and demonstrates control over their formation and redistribution in tunable optical lattices.

Findings

Anti-ferromagnetic correlations depend on lattice geometry.

Redistribution of correlations occurs between different lattice links.

Time-evolution of correlations shows different dynamical regimes.

Abstract

We report on the observation of anti-ferromagnetic correlations of ultracold fermions in a variety of optical lattice geometries that are well described by the Hubbard model, including dimers, 1D chains, ladders, isolated and coupled honeycomb planes, as well as square and cubic lattices. The dependence of the strength of spin correlations on the specific geometry is experimentally studied by measuring the correlations along different lattice tunneling links, where a redistribution of correlations between the different lattice links is observed. By measuring the correlations in a crossover between distinct geometries, we demonstrate an effective reduction of the dimensionality for our atom numbers and temperatures. We also investigate the formation and redistribution time of spin correlations by dynamically changing the lattice geometry and studying the time-evolution of the system. Timescales ranging from a sudden quench of the lattice geometry to an adiabatic evolution are probed.